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CANCELLED: Zombie Earth: Run! Leicester

Back in the September of 2013 it was suggested by a friend that I might want to take part in the Zombie Earth: Run event that would take place that November. However I’d not run much for a very long time, not since before University in fact. Even then the only running I’d done that wasn’t a sprint was what I’d done in school.

So to prepare for this night 5K race I decided I’d try out the Couch to 5K application that was available in the Apple Store for iOS devices. I knew it wasn’t a serious run, though I still thought it was worth putting some effort in for.

The Zombie Earth: Run! event is the biggest Zombie night run in England and this one was to raise funds for LOROS, an organisation that provides hospice care in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

Over the space of the next 8 weeks I then ran three times a week gradually building up to running for the full time it said to, though I’d already passed 5K before the end of the program. By the end I’d managed to get on average to 7 minutes per mile. My personal best however was 06:34 minutes per mile, though one I knew I couldn’t yet manage for a full 5K. To end the program I then did 4 runs in a week with no aches or pains at the end of it.

For the week following the end of the C25K program I went back to 3 runs during the week. The first was a steady pace of 7:12 minutes per mile over a distance of 3.15 miles. The second run was a little slower, only moving at 7:23 minutes per mile but this time over a longer distance, of 4:63 miles. The third run then acted as speed training – a quick 1 mile at an average pace of 06:29 minutes per mile.

For the originally planned week of the race I then scaled back to only two runs, though the second one was cut short due to illness that meant I was out of running for the rest of the week. Depending how you look at it, either fortunately or unfortunately the run then got postponed until April the next year. The organisers provided no explanation for this delay however, and then in February promised they’d announce the date for April the following week. This never happened and by the time April was upon us there was no indication of when it would be.

Eventually the organisers got in touch to say that the Zombie Earth: Run event for Leicester, instead of being postponed again, was now cancelled. This time they explained that the issue was with volunteer numbers, and that this affected their insurance for the event and their ability to come to an agreement with the venue. The way it was worded suggested that this was what the issue was previously as well, which is a real shame as I’m sure a lot more people would have been far more understanding if this was explained openly.

At the start of the day I felt annoyed at the organisers and had decided to not enter one of their events again; however after that email explaining the situation I now felt sorry for the organisers, and now feel it’s possible I’d enter another one in the future. Unfortunately their next event, which they offered to move existing tickets to, is on a day which I knew I wouldn’t be around to take part. Instead I requested for my entry fee to be donated to LOROS.

It’s a shame that what was originally going to be my first running event got cancelled. Though looking at the positives – between this and a friend’s encouragement to try it, it got me running and this next weekend I’ll be doing a 6 mile run for Sport Relief, and then a couple of weeks later a 10K race in Lincoln.